


Embers

by Forbearnan



Series: Forbearnan's Drabbles [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbearnan/pseuds/Forbearnan





	Embers

The ground is watered with blood, the field strewn with bodies.  Horses and men, steel and earth, are eternally bound together, lying in the snarled mass of death.

All life is still.  Nothing moves but the broken, burnt flags, quivering in the breeze and the whisper of air slowly, monotonously turning wheels of fallen carts.  The birds swoop down to claim their easy prey.

As his feet trudge through the tangled corpses, his boots sink into the blood-soaked ground. He does not want to see, but he sees.  He does not want to feel, but he feels.  He does not want to think, but he thinks.  There is nothing he can do but despair with the dead.

He knew that they would not survive, but had not been able to bring himself to tell them.  He had not wanted to be the one to dampen their false hopes or exacerbate their inward fears.  How the knights’ eyes had looked before the battle!  Their voices, fierce as they proclaimed “Long live the King!” their swords, sharp as they lifted them high above their heads.  But their eyes - oh yes, their eyes! - they were strewn with terror, scared to fight against such powerful foes who had already claimed the lives of many of their kin.

Kilgarrah had foreseen Camelot’s demise.  Kilgarrah had told him that he should have killed them both.  But he had not seen the evil in them then; he had not wanted to see the evil in them.  And now the consequences of his hesitation have come to pass.

Why had death taken them, but not himself?  Was this destiny’s twisted way of telling him that he had failed?

There are no more voices to cry out, no more orders to command, no mouths to utter spells.  All are now equals in the Land of the Dead.

A peaceful silence hangs over Camelot, a silence that has not been there for years.

_peaceful,_

_blissful,_

_sleeping._

_No one was there._


End file.
